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| Badlisyah Abdul Ghani's "Syariah Scholar Wannabes" Posted: 07 Jan 2013 08:04 PM PST This article by Badlisyah Abdul Ghani is taken from Free Malaysia Today here. My comments are in blue.  Badlisyah Abdul Ghani, CIMB Islamic Bank Bhd Executive Director & Chief Executive Officer KUALA LUMPUR: The Islamic financial market globally has been invaded by syariah scholar wannabes and they are destroying it from the inside out. While this is a strong statement, it is one which I have made many times in open conferences and many would agree with me. However, like so many other issues in Islamic finance, most prefer to keep such opinions to themselves. Many real and qualified syariah scholars have lamented about this in private and some in public but most times, like the Malay proverb, "Ibarat mencurah air ke daun keladi", the lamentation goes unheeded. These syariah scholar wannabes have infiltrated Islamic banks at the highest level of decision-making bodies – the board of directors, the syariah committee and the senior management – dictating what cannot be done without due consideration to stakeholders value, which at times resulted in the overnight dismantlement of businesses that took years to build. They have infiltrated financial regulators and syariah governing bodies and exerted unnerving and disastrous influence on industry regulatory frameworks and policies in many jurisdictions, causing Islamic finance to fail its function as a public good to facilitate optimum financial inclusion for the general populace or the Ummah, particularly Muslims. As a result, the industry becomes a non-starter in many jurisdictions until today. They have infiltrated many institutions of higher learning and distorted the teaching of syariah and its application in commerce or Muamalat, especially in Islamic finance, by imposing their personal opinion and biasness in their teachings. This weakens the very foundation of the industry from the inside out as they train the industry's workforce. Those that provide distorted shariah application in Islamic finance have also written many books and presented many papers, putting themselves as the industry's authority although most of them have never done a single Islamic banking and finance business themselves. They have a tendency to make prohibition on what has never been expressly prohibited in the Quran and Hadith, such as debt. There have been instances where they have changed the meaning of Quranic verses and Hadith to suit their arguments and define established shariah principles differently, such as defining "Bai" or "Bay" as risk sharing instead of its true meaning, sale. Syariah is simple Considering that most of them are excellent orators and have a stronger command of English than most qualified syariah scholars, many people are easily persuaded and influenced by what they say. I believe that even if we call ourselves an Islamic economist, Islamic accountant, Islamic banker, Islamic journalist or whatever with an Islamic prefix, we are still just an economist, accountant, banker, journalist and so on. We are not syariah experts. We have to accept that we cannot be a syariah expert by simply learning about syariah as a single subject or module in our higher education programmes. Being a syariah expert or a scholar certainly requires a different kind of training. I have never referred to myself as a syariah expert nor have I ever allowed people to think that I am one. I have my opinions. My opinions may be legitimate under syariah and I can appear to come out very strong on it but I have never and would never impose them on others as an authority of syariah. Of course to be fair, most people in the industry are just like me, someone who knows syariah from self-learning and on-the-job training and rely on real qualified shariah scholars to guide us on syariah matters in the industry. However, there are some that truly takes the cake and present themselves as a syariah scholar to the extent of installing themselves as members of the syariah scholars' fraternity although they have no qualification to be one. The reality of Islamic finance is that syariah is simple but it is the people, particularly the syariah scholar wannabes, that make it difficult. - End My comments : Wow Badlishah ! What a choice of words. Let me list some of the things that Badlishah has said about these so called Islamic banking 'experts':
Just like the ostat and the jihadists you too are fighting because the whole thing is just made up - imaginary. You are trying to slay each others imaginary pet unicorns. Get a real life bro - these things simply dont exist. Err when you speak of those who are fluent in English, by any chance are you referring to INCEIF (that Islamic finance education centre or something). I hear they have a Mat Salleh as the CEO now. When you say that they have a tendency to make a "prohibition on what has never been expressly prohibited in the Quran" it means they have elevated themselves to the status of little gods. The Quran speaks about such people : Surah 16:116 "You shall not utter lies with your own tongues stating: "This is HALAL, and this is HARAM" to fabricate lies and attribute them to Allah. Surely, those who fabricate lies and attribute them to Allah will never succeed". Which is why Badlishah is complaining now that Islamic banking is not succeeding. I repeat what he said : "As a result, the industry becomes a non-starter in many jurisdictions until today." Ini bukan saya cakap. Dia yang cakap. Jangan marah saya ok. Badlishah also says that these syariah scholars "have changed the meaning of Quranic verses". Well the Quran speaks about these people too : Surah 2:79 "Therefore, woe to those who distort the scripture with their own hands, then say, "This is what Allah has revealed," seeking a cheap material gain. Woe to them for such distortion, and woe to them for their illicit gains." They twist their tongues and fabricate things with their hands and say 'this is also from Allah, this is from the Rasul, this is Islamic' etc. They do nothing but tell lies. That is why they are so screwed up. I beg to differ about syariah experts. There are no such persons. I have yet to come across any shariah expert. Even from the past. Anyway what does Badlishah's long complaint really mean? It means that there is no certainty about Islamic banking. That is what it means. Its his view versus the wannabe scholars' views. The wannabes are saying, 'ini tak boleh, itu tak boleh, ini haram, itu haram' etc. What Badlishah is saying is "semua boleh pakai, semua boleh terima". How do you run a business like Islamic banking with so much uncertainty? Bank Islam ala Badlishah will say, 'our housing loan can be prepaid even without penalty'. Bank Islam ala Syed Mokhtar may say, 'we dont call it housing loan, it is a buy and sell'. How is the public going to make a decision - which Islamic Bank is more halal? Badlishah punya ke, Syed Mokhtar punya ke, Syed Akbar punya ke? How are you even going to open for business every morning? In business or in doing anything at all, certainty is crucial. We must be sure and certain about what we are doing. Our customers and clients (the marketplace) demand it of us. We cannot tell the market, 'we are Islamic banking. Like this also can, like that also can, this one is halal here, not halal there, that one is haram there, not haram here". That will cause uncertainty and chaos. You cannot run any business based on uncertainty. The Quran says "The earth is full of signs for those who are certain" Surah 51:20. You must be certain about what you say and do. If you are uncertain, it means you are jahil bro. As simple as that. After 1,400 years of Islam, still fighting about what is halal and haram in banking. The non-Muslim ummah in the rest of the world (yes they are also ummah) has reached the planet Mars and you are still fighting about what is right and wrong in Islamic banking. I dont know how long it is going to take the Islamic bankers to realise that bank interest by itself is not part of riba. Riba refers to profiteering, excessive profits many times over the cost. Buying something for RM1.00 then selling it for RM10.00 is definitely excess profiteering. But it is up to the market to weed out excessive profiteering by creating healthy competition. Free markets and healthy competition will weed out riba profiteering. This is why there is no punishment for "riba" in the Quran. It is not something that you can easily isolate or quantify. Islamic banking also suffers that perpetual problem - how do you price your Islamic banking products. The conventional banks charge 8% per annum interest on a housing loan. How will the Islamic bank derive its "profit rate" to be levied on the same house buyer? At the end of the day, the Islamic bank also charges 8% profit rate per annum. A spade is a spade bro, no matter what you label it.  |
| Posted: 07 Jan 2013 04:00 AM PST This is why the Western countries and the advanced countries (negara maju) are not in the Club of Doom like the Islamic countries. The religious people are under severe criticism and scrutiny. The Church is under attack. The Pope now has to encourage his bishops not to be afraid and to stand up to the critics. Please read this short news clip about Pope Benedict and the Catholic Church running scared of people in the West who are criticising them.
Well first of all it is very presumptious of the Pope to accuse anyone who does not agree with him as being agnostic. This is not the language of an educated person. I am surprised that Pope Benedict can publicly express such ignorance. The same label 'agnostic" can be applied against the Pope if he does not believe in Brahma or Vishnu which are also gods of the Hindus. If the Pope denies the existence of Vishnu or Brahma he can even be labelled an atheist by those who believe in Brahma and Vishnu. It is just your god against another's. (Agnostic : One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a god. One who is skeptical about the existence of god but does not profess true atheism. Atheist : One who disbelieves or denies the existence of god or gods. Theism : belief in the existence of a god or gods) First they invent a concept called Jebus. Then they believe in Jebus. Then whoever does not believe in Jebus is condemned as an agnostic or an atheist. They dont even have evidence that Jebus existed. Now they are spewing religious hatreds against anyone who does not believe in their chicken entrails, tea leaves and black cats crossing doorways. They label such people agnostics, atheists etc. This is the satanism of fake religion. It exists to divide and cause hatreds among human beings. Here is a walkabout : Say there is a cave man. One day he lights a fire. Then he says (for whatever reasons) 'This fire is my god'. Does this mean this caveman has become a theist now? Why not? Relative to the caveman isnt this the beginnings of theism as well? From not believing anything before, he has just begun to believe in a god. To the cave man the fire has become his god. You may have a different god like a stone structure, a stone building, empty space, Jebus, a point on the compass, a cross etc. You may call that your god. Then you say, quite arrogantly, that you have become a theist. Actually you are still an atheist - you dont believe in the other fellow's god, from the other fellows point of view of course (relatively speaking again). Please dont be so arrogant like the Pope as not to place your feet (or brains) inside the other religion's shoes ok. Lets get back to the caveman. He looks around him and sees that his other caveman friends have also lit their own fires. They too have started calling their fires 'god'. So the caveman lights his fire again and proclaims loudly, 'This fire is my only god. I dont believe in all the other fires'. Does this mean that the caveman has now become a monotheist? He is now a believer in only one god - his own fire. From being a theist ie believing in god, he has now become a monotheist (believing in only one fire that he likes - his own fire). The caveman then looks around at the other cavemen around him, each with their fires and says that they are agnostics and maybe even atheists. (I am speaking relatively here - also running circles around your mind, bear with me). Then more time passes. Maybe weeks and years. One day the caveman decides that he will wear special clothes and walk around the fire a number of times at certain times of the day or year. He has created his rituals. It becomes a "religion". He then teaches the rituals to his family. He then becomes the priest. He has become a priest of his monotheist religion. If his name is Benedict he will preach to his people that all other cavemen who worship other fires are agnostics or atheists. Soon he will fight, kill, maim, steal, rape and destroy all in the name of his own imagination - he imagined that a fire that he lit with his own hands or a structure that he built with his own hands is his monotheist god. Now in the spirit of respecting other peoples' rights, I think the caveman can wear what he wants and worship what he wants. But he cannot impose his beliefs on others. That is exactly what the Quran says 'laa iqraaha fid-deen' (there is no compulsion in the deen 2:256). . Which is what Pope Benedict's critics are pointing out. They say that the Church is using compulsion in faith - which they say is the method of hate. They want the Church to stop . To get back on track - the West and the advanced countries are saved because the ordinary people are free to question and criticise their religious people with no fear of persecution or prosecution. In the Islamic countries, which are terribly confused, the people suffer the constant threat of being persecuted, prosecuted or both if they question their religious authorities. Persecuted by their own neighbours, villagers and towns people who may take the law into their own hands or prosecuted by the Government. This happens until today in Malaysia, Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and dozens of Islamic countries. Hence these countries cannot achieve the level of advancement and achievement which they so desperately seek. Advancement does not just mean new washing machines, LCD tvs or the latest motorcars. It also means "listen to all views" (Surah 39:18). You will never get a chance to "listen to all views" if you insist that wrong views or views with which you do not agree will be prosecuted or jailed. So I am happy that in the West, the people who want to push religion out of the public debate are so aggressive that even the Pope is afraid of them. He is now urging his bishops to have more courage to face these critics. I think the Church will lose. There is absolutely no way the caveman is going to hold sway forever that his fire is god.  |
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